People advertising they're running Parsers

[Axxion]

i swear people do not know how something works now adays

[Exosapien]

Parsers are fine if you keep it to yourself and I don't have to hear about it. Nothing to be said, nothing to report. If you're running with your static and it's agreed upon there, again nothing to be said, nothing to report.

However, If Mr. Big Boy-DPS-Champlad-Diaper-Pants starts telling everyone in the party finder group how he's monitoring everyone's performance then it becomes an issue, especially when you don't need parsers to tell the weakest link in a group, and the content we have available doesn't require everyone be the biggus phallus dpsus. People that use parsers in content that it really doesn't matter really just look like fools to me.

[Penthea]

Parsers - unlike mods that change gear appearance or whatever - DON'T modify the game code; they just read the data being sent to the client and tabulate it.

Still technically a TOS violation, but as far as anyone can tell, nobody's been banned ONLY for parsing.

It's not a technicality, it is a violation. Yoshida has personally said in live letters to not use them.

But it's unofficially in a grey area because SE know how useful they are as tools. So as long as you keep quiet about it they won't do anything. If they catch you using them to gatekeep or criticise people then the ban hammer comes out. As far as I'm aware the punishment for harassment is more robust if you do it with third party tools because that's considered two violations, not just one.

[Welsper59]

I suppose you're right in that regard.

But, thankfully, parsers will remain steadfast in the raiding community as long as dps checks exist and the enjoyment of optimizing is present.

Which I'm very happy about.

Same. I'm very much of the mind that if someone wants to use a parser for whatever reason that isn't negative, they should. My reason for posting here is just so that people, both supporters of parsers and non, understand the objective nature of the ToS regarding it. Even regarding the moral reason Yoshi-P and the team don't outright support parsers, I'm inclined to agree with them. The supporting evidence is this thread alone. We're seeing this back and forth argument here all the time, but we obviously don't see it too much in-game. The side of the game that people across the gaming community regard as the most friendly of players lol. Minimizing the unnecessarily competitive nature of people really does change the way people conduct themselves.

[LittleImp]

It's nice because it makes it easier to avoid people with certain.. undesirable attitudes. I'm generally supportive of parsing and stuff, but people who seem to attach their entire in game identity to competitive parsing tend to be pretty negative and volatile. Any time questions of arbitrary standards for self-worth become involved, stuff can get nasty.

[AziraSyuren]

It's nice because it makes it easier to avoid people with certain.. undesirable attitudes. I'm generally supportive of parsing and stuff, but people who seem to attach their entire in game identity to competitive parsing tend to be pretty negative and volatile. Any time questions of arbitrary standards for self-worth become involved, stuff can get nasty.

I'm actually the opposite. I'd much rather not play with people who complain about parsing, and I've seen those players tend to be the nastiest. The person who complains the loudest often ends up being the one who parses so low that FFLogs has to invent a new color for it.

[LittleImp]

I'm actually the opposite. I'd much rather not play with people who complain about parsing, and I've seen those players tend to be the nastiest. The person who complains the loudest often ends up being the one who parses so low that FFLogs has to invent a new color for it.

Obviously there's nothing funner than sitting in a raid call with 7 sweaty dudes who's entire personalities revolves around saying the names of various twitch emotes outloud, while screaming down the mic about single dropped GCDs or bad mechanic RNG.

I've had my runs griefed enough times by someone mad their midares weren't critting.

[AziraSyuren]

Obviously there's nothing funner than sitting in a raid call with 7 sweaty dudes who's entire personalities revolves around saying the names of various twitch emotes outloud, while screaming down the mic about single dropped GCDs or bad mechanic RNG.

I've had my runs griefed enough times by someone mad their midares weren't critting.

You didn't have to call out my friend group like that, man.

[FrogDog]

sitting in a raid call with 7 sweaty dudes

This makes me want to start raiding.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Actually the TOS prohibits software that modifies the games code, so it isn't "legit." They just choose not to enforce it...for now.

For now? They haven’t for the past 8 years they aren’t gonna start now. They know they’d lose a hell ton of players if they got rid of parsers lmao. They know people parse and they’re fine with it. They just don’t want people being ducks about it.